builder

At 4:30pm on 4/22/2017, I attended Frameworks Springboard: Build Better Sites in WAYYY Less Time, presented by Shelly Peacock, at the 2017 Wordcamp Conference in Raleigh, NC

Frameworks Springboard: Build Better Sites in WAYYY Less Time

Here’s whatI expect: After this talk, I won’t have to pick a random theme again. I’ll learn quick customization tips, and won’t fear the functions.php file any more. Also, I’ll incorporate Page Builders for even more speed and flexibility.

Takeaways: Tons of resources, basic functionality of child themes and page builders, all built on a framework.

Most designers will find the free themes that they like and they move forward, choosing more specialized theme. Canvas was a drag and drop first toe into frameworks- using them to build different things.

what’s a framework

a frameworks builds the basics of the house, but its your job to change out the design. Frameworks are used for speed, easily changing theme and designs. We’ll talk about 3 that start with a base framework and 3 child themes. You should use them because they are well-coded and have continuity. it is always the same and the theme is always the same and laid out in the same order. We’ll use Genesis.

Why use a framework? It has a giant community to help and support and a ton of resources available for frameworks. they are 10,000 time more available, in-depth, and fantastic.

Which frameworks?

A framework must have: accessibility, responsivity, and ease of use. Accessibility is the first smackdown from google. A non-responsive site gets a 60% smackdown from google. and of course easy to use.

There are premium and free frameworks. Genesis framework is her go-to framework. In her case, it was a 2-day setup for a new site. its $60 for the framework and the “sample Themes”. Child theme are plug and play.

Divi is the number 2 choice. Its easy with options. It has a drag and drop plugin. its $89 for all plugins.

Builder is a another theme option. Its unique in that its almost a pagebuilder by itself. You can have 5 different pages with 5 different looks and lay them out page by page.Its $197 for all items and all themes.

There are also some free options. Beans. Speedy, easy to set up, but a few child theme. You can build your own child themes.

So… how?

wpcore.com is a free system. Sign up for an account and you can create a collection of plugins. These plugins save time!

Checklist

This checklist is a start to finish plugin ideas, ecommerce system plan.

Beaver Builder

Using a sample theme as our example.
1) Set header (style sheet line 1041)
2) Set nav (style sheet line 1110
3) set footer (style sheet line 1449)

Beaver builder fills in everything in between. You must have a full-width page template. (link in notes) save as beaver-builder-page.php and drop into the css folder

For visual designers, you’re well-situated to bring them in early as opposed to later. Set aside a 2-hour period of time, changing fonts, colors, etc.

Then she moved through several examples. I liked this sessions, but will be a little LESS likely to use these framework systems. The examples shown of the work she had done were not good. I would never do this kind of work for my customers. She was very excited to say she was able to build out a fully templated website for $1500 in only a few hours. Frankly, the website looked like it was created in a few hours. A system like ENFOLD or BRIDGE seems like it could have a much better return on investment, a much better look and feel, and much more approachable backend service.

I found some of this material to be very helpful, but the examples did not back up the level of expectation I had. Perhaps I was overshooting the desires of the presenter.